Accused Palin hacker has a history of intrusion
Found on ComputerWorld on Thursday, 09 October 2008
Kernell, 20, was charged Wednesday with one felony count of accessing a protected computer for allegedly breaking into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate.
The other incident allegedly occurred around 2000, when Kernell was in the seventh grade. Kernell and an accomplice guessed the password to a server used to store teaching materials at the school and were able to log on to the system, McDaniels said.
It's sad. Today you're already a hacker when you can guess a password. No wonder movies with plots like "bad guy uses 'evil' as password" are successful. Years ago, the password "12345" made a good joke in Spaceballs; today, people take it serious. Consequently, the school and Palin should be prosecuted for weak passwords (and Palin for illegally using private e-mail for government business).